Isekai Beach III – Summer 2019!

It’s time for part three of my summer of ’19 reviews and recommendations. You know, I once called these things simply recommendations because why would I talk about shows that I’m not recommending? Then I realized that I don’t always think the shows I am watching are actually good shows.

That’s right, I watch trash. It’s one of the reasons that you’ll rarely find that I am reviewing/watching a show that has been super hyped or one that everyone – including the folks in r/anime on Reddit like, who if you don’t know, hates any anime that has any minor animation faults, fanservice, or doesn’t stick to the manga or light novel source material one hundred percent.

The point is I have unique tastes, so when I tell you an anime is trash, you know it’s trash.

That may or may not be relevant in this post.

Isekai Cheat Magician

One day high school students Nishimura Taichi and Azuma Rin were walking down the street when suddenly they found themselves inside some kind of weird magical circle. They were semi-instantly transported to a new world. After being amazingly accepting of this ridiculous premise the pair heads down to the local adventures guild to get jobs adventuring since there seems to be no other employment available in far-off worlds.

If you’ve ever seen any Isekai anime before then you know how things go from here. The pair are massively overpowered so much that they literally named the anime ‘cheat’. They end up being trained by the most powerful mages in the world (including a very pretty Elf – that’s my own editorializing…) and sent out to do the things cheat level magicians do.

The show hasn’t been that interesting so far. Rin and Taichi are both pretty ‘blah’ characters, but there are a few things that make you look forward to the future and the unraveling of some mysteries. There’s a cute voice that Taichi keeps hearing that is clearly talking to him and seems to be at least partially responsible for the pair being transported to this new world. There are some weird ninjas who were sent to ambush the pair while doing a spy mission. Who sent them and why? Finally, the two teachers, Myura and Remia are way too accepting of Rin and Taichi’s insane power levels.

These questions are one of the reasons I am continuing to watch this show. I also like these isekai shows since it gives the creators a lot of latitude with world-building. I will officially not recommend this show, but also not discourage you from watching it if you’re willing to put up with a couple of boring first two episodes.

ICM is on Crunchyroll.

Okaa-san Online

Officially known as ‘Tsuujou Kougeki ga Zentai Kougeki de Ni-kai Kougeki no Okaasan wa Suki Desu ka?’, Okaa-san is what happens when you let Sigmond Freud create an anime.

Our ‘hero’, Oosuki Masato, takes a survey and ends up being transported into not a different world, but into a video game. Very Sword Art Online-ish except that his thicc, big oppai’d mom (Oosuki Mamako) is transported as well. The sloppy explanation is that the game is a beta test and it’s designed to help kids get along better with their moms.

Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense to me either.

Masato isn’t that disappointed in the situation, even with his mom hanging on to him (and blocking party members from joining for alleged mom reasons) until he realizes that he isn’t a very good character and his mom is an overpowered, multi-target monster. In addition to this, Masato is constantly being thrown into fan service situations with his mother causing him to be constantly traumatized.

We all know in anime that the only family member you can be attracted to is your sister/brother.

So far there are a couple of amusing side characters (though I can see Wise grating on my nerves pretty quickly) and Shirase as pretty much all NPCs is an amusing gag.

Okaasan is trash, but I’ll still keep watching it. If you’re not into the story as much as you are the plot, I’d encourage waiting for the Blurays to come out and the God beams to be erased.

If you do want to watch it now, Okaasan is on Crunchyroll.

Granblem

Granblem has a really cool story behind it. Magic apparently disappeared from the world – our world – over 1,000 years ago. Descendants of mages (and maybe new mages?) fight in mechas every full moon, every so often in what I think is a fight to be able to restore magic to the world, or at least get a wish granted.

I should pay more attention to the expositional dialogue if I’m going to write these things in the future.

Our main character, Kohinata Mangetsu, finds herself transported to the Granblem fighting arena one full moon. She has no clue what the fuck is happening, only seeing a well-designed and well-colored alternative universe and a giant goddamned robot.

Lucky for her another giant goddamned robot pops in and the operator of that one, Shingetsu Ernesta Fukami, explains what’s happening. In the course of fleeing, Mangetsu manages to summon her own giant goddamned robot and kick some serious ass with it.

There are two things about this anime that stick out for me. One, it’s beautiful. The colors are bright, but also muted when they need to be. There’s a lot of glowing especially on the giant goddamned robots, which I love, and the cinematography is spectacular. Secondly, there is a lot of mystery to this show and none of the answers come off as telegraphed or foreshadowed. All of the main characters have a past that you can invest in, except for maybe Mangetsu, but you’re still intrigued by her story. Why’s she here? Why’s she so powerful? How did she learn to work her robot in a single episode?

Of the three anime we’ve talked about today, this one is the one I am most excited about and I can see it being the only one of the three that I manage to watch all the way to completion. Highly recommended for its great story, great artwork, and even a bit of cute-girls-doing-cute-things squeezed into the middle.

Granblem is on Crunchyroll.

Next post, will I tell you what my favorite show of the season so far is? Perhaps. You’ll have to read it to find out!